Visibility supporting systems have been widely used. In such a system, a camera is mounted onto a rear part or a blind corner of a vehicle such as an automobile, to display the image of a blind spot around the vehicle that is hardly observed by a driver at a driver's seat. For example, when an image captured by a camera at a rear part of a vehicle is displayed, a driver can perceive the situation of the rear space of the vehicle without turning back by checking the displayed image.
Another type of visibility supporting systems that provide image data using multiple cameras mounted to a vehicle body, instead of a single camera, also have been successfully implemented.
For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-183877, an apparatus for combining image data is discussed. The combination is effected based on the videos obtained by four cameras located on the front, rear, right and left side of a vehicle body, so that a driver can perceive the full surroundings of the vehicle by a single check of the combined image data.
The apparatus described in the above patent generates an overhead image like a view from above a vehicle to appropriately support the driving operation of a driver of the vehicle.
The display of an overhead image viewed from above the vehicle on a display screen, as in the apparatus described in the above patent, facilitates the check of the current position of a vehicle and the trace of the vehicle to a target position during parallel parking, garage parking and angled parking, by a driver.
A driver of a vehicle can check the surroundings of the vehicle by the eyes just before the driver gets in the vehicle. But since a moving object may rapidly approach the vehicle after the driver got in the vehicle, it is desirable to monitor the surroundings of the vehicle including blind spots from a driver's seat using an image.